New Zealand First Archive

• 

  A ship leaving a sinking rat?

  
  
  
  Russel’s reiteration of the Greens long-standing position on the Winston Peters scandals – that the Greens would probably not be able to sit at a cabinet table with Peters unless everything was cleared up – seems to have got a lot more media coverage this time around than previously. And Helen Clark seems to have [...] read more
  November 4, 2008 10:11 am - 7 Comments
• 

  Peters donations scandal gets deeper

  
  
  
  The most compelling part of Phil Kitchin’s Dominion Post story about Winston Peters and the Velas is the three paragraphs at the very end: A box of documents sent to the newspaper this week shows that Vela interests made donations to NZ First as early as 1999. Mr Meurant suggested to Mr Vela that this [...] read more
  November 1, 2008 9:57 am - 133 Comments
• 

  Accountancy and accountability

  
  
  
  Did everyone enjoy the brief interlude in the election campaign where we got to talk about issues other than Winston Peters and his unusual accountancy systems?  (Maybe Jim Bolger was on to something when he made him treasurer, given his ability to run a party on no declared donations.) Interestingly Winston’s $80,000 donation from the Spencer [...] read more
  October 29, 2008 3:49 pm - 7 Comments
• 

  Attack ads

  
  
  
  The increasing emergence of US style attack campaigning in recent years (John and John, Taxathon etc) is disappointing. Mr Carson, who came up with Labour’s “Keep it Kiwi” and “This one’s about trust” campaigns, says the key to advertising a political party is to pit yourself against your opposition. In the commercial world, you want to [...] read more
  October 29, 2008 11:54 am - 4 Comments
• 

  Dunne adds his head to the National monster

  
  
  
  United Future has followed the Greens in assessing the two old parties policy platforms and letting voters know before the election which one it will be supporting.  It’s a bit harder to tell from it’s media release exactly what policies it based  this decision on, but I guess we know from past practice one issue [...] read more
  October 27, 2008 9:17 am - 39 Comments
• 

  Clark’s poor advice

  
  
  
  Even if voters’ choice were simply a Labour-led government or a National-led government Helen Clark’s ‘advice‘ yesterday would be patently false given the Greens’ preference announcement last week: When she was asked at a meeting with Foodstuffs workers if they should vote strategically to ensure a Labour coalition, she said the best way was to vote [...] read more
  October 25, 2008 8:17 am - 13 Comments
• 

  An immigrant woman’s paradise

  
  
  
  There was an odd story from the Herald today on an immigration debate in Auckland. Keith was at the debate and was one of the most vocal speakers there, outlining the Green’s strong human rights stance on immigration. Yet he got no mention at all in the article that found space to note [...] read more
  September 29, 2008 9:52 pm - 57 Comments
• 

  Who will it be?

  
  
  
  Triennially the question goes on to all the MMP parties: So who’s it going to be, who will you go with? This time, with the exception of the Maori Party, we pretty much know the answer, or will know the answer before the election for all of them.   But what we don’t know is who [...] read more
  September 25, 2008 8:29 am - 53 Comments
• 

  The Privileges Committee vote

  
  
  
  Well I’m pleased and grateful to admit that I was wrong and the Privileges Committee did find against Winston Peters.  I only saw a portion of the evidence and being a frog rather than lawyer obviously did not weight it properly. It was disappointing to see that the committee voted along party lines.  It would be [...] read more
  September 23, 2008 8:37 am - 41 Comments
• 

  An emissions trading subsidy for fishing?

  
  
  
  The Hive noted on Friday that: The revised [Emissions Trading Scheme] contains an enormous new subsidy for the fishing industry. This was, surprise, surprise negotiated by NZ First… Fish subsidies are the direct cause of over fishing. We are opposed to any subsidisation of this industry. The original ETS has no subsidy going [...] read more
  August 31, 2008 4:19 pm - 7 Comments